In karaoke devices, various methods for scoring the singing skill of a singer have recently been proposed. For example, a method is proposed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2005-128372, in which a pitch is extracted from voice data representative of a user voice signal on a predetermined frame basis, and the pitch extracted on a frame basis is compared with a tone pitch of song data, whereby the accuracy of the pitch of the user's voice is determined. A karaoke device of this type for scoring the singing skill is generally configured to display on a screen a score indicating a result of scoring.
It is also useful for a singer to recognize, by sound, how to correct which part of his/her singing. However, with the conventional scoring method in which the score is simply displayed, the singer cannot recognize, by sound, how to change which part of singing. This also applies to musical instrument performance other than singing a song.
This invention has been created under the above described background, and its object is to provide a technique of enabling a singer to auditorily recognize how to change the way of singing.